Cornell 4, Princeton 2:
 
        For a description of the goals and the play see Adam Wodon's recap
at http://www.uscollegehockey.com/news/1997/01/31_corbeatspri.html
 
        Jason Elliot played an excellent game in goal losing his shutout on
two late, meaningless goals.  With Cooney and Dailey out for the weekend,
some reshuffling of the lines led to some inspired play by Mike Rutter.
With two goals in the game he had his best performance since the first
weekend of the season against Harvard and Brown.  Playing alongside Kyle
Knopp and Ryan Moynihan, the 'semi-midget' line picked up three of the
games four goals, with the other coming from Sophomore Keith Peach, in a
rather rare appearance for the  Red.  The three earned the start for
Saturday night with their play, and it looks like the Red may have found a
scoring line for the next two and a half years.
 
Cornell 5, Yale 0:
 
        Earning his first collegiate shutout, Jean-Marc Pelletier looked
more comfortable than ever before.  In previous appearances the sophomore
goaltender always looked a little slow, a little awkward, and a little on
the edge.  Though he wasn't really tested in this game, his positioning was
good, and his confidence was apparant.  With the excetion of the final 2:04
of the Princeton game, the Red had 117:56 of shutout hockey this weekend.
This was domination of teams that should be beaten, and this was very nice
to see.
 
        Cornell dominated the play from the start, but it wasn't until 8
minutes in that Jeff Burgoyne came down the left side of the Yale zone on a
2 on 1.  The Yale defenseman went down in an attempt to take away the pass,
and Burgoyne took the opportunity to nicely raise the puck over the fallen
defender and drop in flatly in front of the net, where Vinnie Auger slapped
it home from point blank range.  It was a pretty goal, something Cornell
hasn't done terribly much of in recent weeks, and it was a indication of
things to come that night.
 
        Shortly thereafter, with puck in the Yale side of the neutral zone,
on the near side of the rink, opposite from the benches, the Elis went for
a line change.  Mike Rutter picked up the puck and skated across the blue
line uncontested.  He let loose a hard slapper from the top of the circle
that beat Dan Choqutte, giving the Red a 2-0 lead.  Cornell continued to
dominate for the next few minutes, until during a faceoff referee Leavitt,
wearing the Orange bands in a role I have never seen him in before, skates
across the circle to Vinnie Auger and waves him off.  Apparently Vinnie had
left his mouthguard on the bench (or the dressing room, who knows?) and
received a 10 minute misconduct for his foolishness.  The red then picled
up where they had left off, pressuring but failing to score for the rest of
the period.  Some instense pressure at the end of the eriod drew a cross
checking call on Yale to set up a power play to begin the second.
 
        At this point I left Lynah rink to check on the basketball game
occurring againmst Penn in the Fieldhouse.  I was able to do this without
heading outdoors, and to my surprise I watched the Red build a 24-21 lead
in the last minutes of the first half.  As a result, I missed the first
Cornell goal of the second period, when I finally made my way back to the
rink.  The fourth Cornell goal occurred when Jaime Papp took the puck high
in the slot and slapped it by a rather shaky looking Dan Chaquette.  With
the Red up 4-0 at the end of the period, I again went to catch the end of
the basketball game, which turned into a rather comfortable 61-53 Cornell
victory.  Knowing how long the last 4 minutes of a basketball game that is
even moderately close takes, it shouldn't surprise anyone that by the time
I got back to the rink, there were only 12 minutes remaining to play.
Cornell continued to pressure despite the four goal lead and that paid off
when Mike Rutter and Kyle Knopp cam into the Yale zone on a 2-on-1 with 6
minutes to play.  Rutter, taking the same path he had on his earlier goal
wound up to take an identical slapshot, drawing Chaquette out to cut down
the angle.  But the uncoiling of the shot turned into a beautiful cross ice
pass to the streaking Knopp who then had several seconds to decide which
potion of the net to use before sliding across the dead center of the goal
line for a 5-0 Cornell lead.  The rest of the game was rather uneventful, a
few skirmishes after the whistle, but nothing serious.  The last 5 minutes
of the game were accompanied by jingling keys, and shouts of "MVP, MVP"
directed at Dan, along with a rather humorous, "Hey Dan, we're glad you
have a sense of humor, 'cause your Team Sucks!."  An additional rendition
of Hawaii 5-0 added some life to the crowd given the score.  The crowd went
home very satisifed with the 4 point weekend, moving Cornell into a first
place tie with RPI.
 
Cornell Women 9, BC 2:
 
        Watching this game was a delight as the Cornell Big Red held the
puck in the BC zone for a good 50 of the 60 minutes in the game.  BC was
unable to clear the puck when they wanted to, even when they were on the
power play.  Goaltender Christy Netwig (Her last name was something like
that) played an absolutely outstanding game for the Eagles, whose defense
should be absolutely ashamed.  Christy stopped several breakaways, numerous
deflections, wraparounds, slapshots and whatever else was thrown at her.
The 70 shot toal posted earlier is proabably not an exageration, though I
didn't hear an announcement of final shot totals made at the rink.  The
Cornell women must have been very upset both with their loss to Dartmouth
the previous day and with their tie agaist BC in the last meeting between
the two.  The score was 8-0 with 6 minutes to go, and 2 nice plays by Erin?
McGee were able to get the Eagles on the board.  A final push by the Red
almost resulted in a 10th goal, which would have absolutely delighted the
crowd and the Pep Band, which plays Davy in 3 on such occasions.
 
A very nice weekend in Cornell sports, the Pep Band goes undefeated (4-0 in
games they attended) and a lot of good dominating play.  A happy day to be
a Cornell fan.  Off to Gutterson next weekend for the big showdown: our
midgets against yours, though not on the ice at the same time, I'd bet.
I'll be there, leaving RPI/Union and Yale/Princeton as the two trips I've
yet to make.  The first of those will be rectified later this spring.  See
you when Cornell visits your team ...
 
 
 
Larry Weintraub,
Cornell University
Let's Go BIG RED!!!!!
 
Quote of the Semester:
   "Our program was coming but when we played Cornell our building just
changed.  The Cornell fans brought a lot of their chants and their
tradition to this building.  From then on, our crowd has taken off"
 
                --Michigan Hockey Coach Red Berenson
 
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